Linus Torvalds closes merge window two days early with Linux 3.13-rc1 release

Linus Torvalds has closed Linux 3.13 merge window two days early by releasing the Linux 3.13-rc1 on Friday instead of the usual Sunday release cycle.

The new kernel brings with a lot of new features including better hardware device drivers, file-system improvements, support for Broadwell processors, support for AMD Hawaii GPU, Radeon DPM, NFTables, among others.

Announcing the Linux 3.13-rc1 Torvalds noted in the release announcement that the Linux 3.13 merge window turned out to be a fairly normal one. “By patch size we had a pretty usual ~55% drivers, 18% architecture code, 9% network updates, and the rest is spread out (fs, headers, tools, documentation).”

Talking a bit about the early closure of merge window Torvalds notes, “So you had an extra week to prepare your pull requests, and if you were planning on sending it in the last two days thinking I’d close the merge window on Sunday as usual, I can only laugh derisively in your general direction, and call you bad names.”

“Because I’m not interested in your excuses. I did warn people about this in the 3.12 release notes. As it was, there were a few people who cut it fairly close today. You know who you are”, Torvalds added.

Ravi is the editor of TechieNews. He is a technology enthusiast with keen interest in information security. Ravi has over 6 years of experience and has been actively involved in editorial groups of many US and UK based news portals.